Letter from four defendants of the C.C.F. (Greece)

ANNOUNCEMENT OF ENDING THE HUNGER STRIKE OF THE FOUR DEFENDANTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY ORGANISATION CONSPIRACY OF CELLS OF FIRE

11/2/11

This text is written as a statement to announce the end of the hunger strike that we had begun on Thursday 3-2-2011. We know that such type of actions and forms of struggle leave their prints on the history of the revolutionary subversive movement, and hence have a public character and are exposed to any criticism. Taking into consideration, therefore, that we are stopping the strike before our demand is satisfied and at a very short time after the start our mobilisation, we decided to make a public statement carrying out an assessment of our mobilization from the beginning of our trial until now.

All through the duration of the last week before our trial, the Media propagated the climate of safety in a characteristic way, so it can be understood that it is very likely for the trial to be carried out behind closed doors and with no audience, in the frames of a more general effort to isolate political prisoners. When this information reached us we began to discuss seriously this probability and the way we would react if this became a reality. Easily we decided that we would not accept in any case to carry out the trial in this way and that we would do anything in our power to prevent it.

Monday the 17th of January found us in the court room to learn that although the entry for the public is free, they kept and photocopied the id cards of those who wished to enter. After the aggressive mention of this matter in the court, the judges agreed to not keep the id cards and it declared that all evidence that has been retained will be destroyed. After their return, from a small break lasting a few minutes, where they obviously received certain orders from their political superiors, they declared that is legal and imposed the retaining of the id cards, mentioning the regulations that prevail on prison buildings. After the intense reaction in which the people who were present in the room for solidarity participated, obviously having only given their id in order to support us, we withdrew declaring that we and our lawyers will abstain from the process in the event that this fascist practice of the court continues.

In the detention rooms where all six of us were, we were informed by our lawyers that there is a possibility that they could try us in absentia. Simultaneously, our three co-defendants Manos Giospas, Nikos Bogiatzakis, Errikos Rallis, with whom until then we had any communication, said to us that they support no matter what our choice and will follow our decision. In a discussion that we had between us six, we put down the possibilities that we faced and we decided soberly and consciously that provided that our demand is not satisfied we will cease our lawyers and we will withdraw. We were even preparing a statement that would be announced by us, specifically for this case. In this agreement participated only under terms Alexandros Mitrousias, which he had made clear to us that he will return to the trial, even if just one individual with his/hers presence legalizes the process.

The process was adjourned for Monday 24-1-2011, where one of us read our public statement that in the event that they do not withdraw the regime of terrorism against friends and relatives who come in solidarity, we will act as we had warned, while we began the same day to deny prison food that will escalate to a hunger strike if the trial advances with appointed advocates without us. Only Konstandina Karakatsani, even though she ensured that she continued to agree with the prospect of withdrawing from the trial, she did not jointly sign the statement, with the excuse that she did not help shape it and that she wishes to make a separate statement. A statement, however, that never happened, something that was later used by her as an argument of not agreement. The truth, however, is that clearly and categorically she had agreed with the statement that was read on behalf of all of us by Panagiotis Argirou that we withdraw from the trial and cease our advocates. As they know all that were present, we withdrew all willingly, amidst chants from those in solidarity. What followed was the repeated appointment of lawyers from the court, of which some did not even arrive, and others invoked from personal matters to ethical reasons in order to not undertake our defence. Until the court decided that it should again and by blackmailing appoint the advocates of our initial choice, obviously in order to give a new turn to the process that up to then seemed to be coming to a dead-end.

Therefore on 3-2-2011 which was the day where our lawyers would deny the appointment by the court, we announced the beginning of the hunger strike, in order that the demands that we had placed are satisfied. Later the same day, astonished we learned from the tv channels that the lawyers of Konstadina Karakatsani declared that they were never ceased by their client, and that she was removed handcuffed and violently. The next day we learned also that she was present herself with similar arguments asking for the adjournment the of trial so that she can be represented by her own lawyers. The biggest still surprise was one more text that she published also in which she publicly declared that she had never agreed with us to withdraw from the trial together, while it even left points of disagreement in our choice to go on hunger strike for the particular matter.

We on our side consider the attitude of the prisoner in question at least unreliable. When a person and especially an anarchist makes agreements they should keep their word, particularly when these agreements involve consequences, not only for them, but also for the rest as well. The regression of Konstandina Karakatsani legalized the decision of the court to register the people and gave it the power to try the rest of the defendants in absentia. The most enraging is that she tried to wrap this regression with a political cloak and did not at least have the sincerity to admit that she could not bear the weight of our common agreement. Her own attitude is moreover that split a fighting front against a court in which we could have achieved an important victory.

From our side certainly the conclusion of the fight we gave filled us with experiences and conclusions. Self-criticism is a weapon for every revolutionary and in this frame we recognize our error to support the whole process on a agreement that was not based on a common prospect, since all of us as disparate individuals with different starting lines of struggle, political attitudes, convictions and perceptions, each one of us gave it a separate meaning, creating thus a construction of which the base was relatively unstable. Of course, a mistake, however, was also the fact that we relied on the wrong individual the moment where a lot was jeopardized for each one us. No matter what, this development caused the rupture of an agreement that henceforth hung dangerously in the middle of a hunger strike. Since also Alexandros Mitrousias decided to act as he had clarified from the beginning, it was a given that no requirements can exist for our three co-defendants, the moment they are free under conditions and this we believe that can be perceived by anyone. The position of these individuals was that they will also support an uncatchable front of fight, from the moment this was cracked there is no reason for them not to return to the trial.

As for us, we think that the means of a hunger strike under the condition of attendance to the court of half or more of the defendants is rendered ineffectual. We are revolutionaries and not martyrs. The hunger strike is a means of which the historicity and the effectiveness is not to be doubted. Nevertheless considering that the balances were reversed against us, its continuation does not even appear potentially expedient, but on the contrary and an end in itself.
Thus we select today 11-2-2011 to end the hunger strike, even though our demands have not yet been satisfied. On the other side, we are not in any way going to accept this court and the way it develops. As revolutionaries we will not tolerate any blackmails they attempt to impose on us, and we do not have anything to negotiate with their special court martial. If they judge us in absentia they should know that we have condemned them beforehand. We consider that the position of the state mechanism is indicative of its intentions. The matter, however, is not that we show its intolerance or its arbitrariness. On the contrary, we perceive our attitude as a condition of political victory against the juridical authority, that believed that it could minimize us with its norms and orders, trying to accomplish thus the undermining of our struggle.

It is therefore rendered a necessity the evident and vigorous choice against an totalitarian regime that is continuously becoming more fascist. The strategy of isolation of political prisoners does not aim only to bury them in the democratic dungeons, neither to defame and discredit them through the channels that feed the enormous volume of informative waste that they feed us. It aims to their complete isolation from any live expression of solidarity, in order to brake them away from any connection with the components of the wider revolutionary movement. One such effort of isolation is finally also the stiff attitude to check and file those who dare to appear at our trial as the minimal price that they should pay in order to express their solidarity. A price that all know that could be paid dearly in the future, given that the fury of the persecuting authorities and the vengeance of repression that has already derailed and easily are translated into mass prosecutions and imprisonment.

The uncontrollable penalization of comrade, friendly and family relations, the elasticity of the official charges, the continuous upgrades of the anti-terrorist law, the photographs of comrades that are all over the televisions and newspapers, are only a few of the many things that have happened and will continue happening. The recording, finally, of the identification of those who come in solidarity is for us nothing other, than one more spear of repression that continues to intensify.

Thus, what we declare clearly and publicly is that as long as our comrades have no place in this trial, then surely neither do we.

We raise our clenched fist through the bars to all the comrades from Greece and abroad, that acted in solidarity on the platform of the multiform subversive struggle. We thank, also, all those that selected publicly to express their solidarity to our struggle, going on prison food abstention. They factually proved that even in conditions of imprisonment the margins to fight and show solidarity never grow thin. Because dignity and conscience never wear chains…